Dreaming of the Bones

thought about what you said, that Lydia may have been murdered. I don’t know who would have done such a thing, and I hate the idea of someone taking her life before she was ready to let it go. But it’s also a sort of release, because it lets me believe that I wasn’t wrong about her happiness, about what we had together those last years. And if that’s the case, I owe it to her to finish what we began. I’m going to write that novel, and I had better get started. I think I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that Lydia won’t be there to listen to it.”

    ”Who besides Daphne really grieved for Lydia ?” asked Gemma as they walked down the school’s curving drive towards the car park. ”I mean the Lydia of the present, as she was when she died, rather than the Lydia of the past.” It was a bright, blowy day, and the wind whipped her skirt, wrapping it round her legs. She had to stop and brush a wayward strand of hair from her face before she could see to unlock the car.
    ”Vic,” Kincaid said when they had sealed themselves in the car’s calm interior. ”I think Vic grieved for her.”
    Gemma glanced at him as she fastened her seat belt. He’d been unusually silent all morning, and she didn’t know if worry over Kit or the case occupied him the most. ”You don’t really think Daphne Morris had anything to do with Lydia’s death, do you? Or Vic’s?”
    After a moment, he shook his head. ”What motive could she have had, other than concealment? And then why reveal anything to us? We had no proof. They must have been very careful to leave no evidence of their relationship. I don’t think Vic even guessed.”
    Gemma turned the key in the ignition and listened to the Escort’s engine cough and sputter its way to life. ”What now?” she asked. ”We seem to have come to a bit of a dead end.”
    ”I think we need to have a word with the very tactless Miss Pope,” said Kincaid, his face grim. ”I rang Laura last night. She said the boys’ school is in Comberton, just the other side of the motorway from Grantchester.”
    After a brief consultation of the map, they were once again circling the Newnham roundabout. But this time they stayed on the Barton Road , bypassing the Grantchester cutoff, and had soon run through Barton and into Comberton. The village had none of the charm of Grantchester but seemed rather a suburban enclave, with its quiet clusters of semidetached houses. It looked, thought Gemma, a nice place for children.
    They found the secondary school without difficulty, a large, sprawling building just off the main road. An inquiry at the office sent them to the staff room, where they were told they might be lucky enough to catch Miss Pope between classes.
    The corridors were filled with uniformed children changing classes. They parted round Gemma and Kincaid as if the adults were of no more interest than stones, and their voices echoed from the walls and ceilings like cannon fire. Gemma thought of Kit here a week ago, as silly and raucous as the boys she saw now, an ordinary child thinking of exam papers and football.
    The break room contained half a dozen teachers in various stages of correcting papers and drinking coffee. When Kincaid asked for Miss Pope, the woman sitting alone and unoccupied except for a coffee raised her head. A dishwater blonde with prominent roots, she was a little plump and a little overly made up. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been weeping.
    She looked up at them uncertainly. ”Yes, I’m Miss Pope. Can I help you?”
    Kincaid introduced them and asked if there were somewhere they might talk alone.
    ”You’re from Scotland Yard? But what—I mean... Why me? What is this about?” She twisted her hands together, shredding the tissue she held.
    ”It won’t take long, Miss Pope,” Gemma reassured her. ”We just have a few routine questions we’d like to ask you.”
    ”Well... I suppose it’s all right,” she said, frowning. ”There’s an empty classroom just down the hall that we could use, but I’ve a class in five minutes.”
    The man at the next table had been making little pretense of ignoring their conversation, and after glancing again from Kincaid to Gemma, Miss Pope said, ”Shelley, would you take register for me if I’m a bit late?” She then led them down the corridor to an empty classroom.
    Kincaid closed the door, shutting out the sound of the children’s last scramble for their rooms before the bell. ”Miss Pope, did